“Deal with humans,” I add.

  “Exactly, and all the noise and bright light. So much freaking light. So, every other Friday, when we’re not a Fry-Day’s, Ryker reserves an entire restaurant of his choosing for the evening and they cater to my needs. Personally, I think it’s over the top and I feel a little guilty about it, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. Listen…”

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Isn’t that great? Usually at some point during dinner I’d hide in the bathroom for a few minutes because it’s the quietest place. I don’t have to do that here. I just wish he wouldn’t choose restaurants like this. He already chose what we’re going to eat too. Says I need to eat healthy at least once in a while.”

  I grin and listen to Roman talk about Ryker. It’s nice what he has to say about him. He admires his big brother and I’m glad the two of them have such a close bond. I wonder what happened that made Roman such a joy and Ryker the polar opposite.

  “He’d never admit it, but he even wears his costumes to dinner, so the servers will be busy looking at him instead of being weirded out by me.” Roman raises his glass and waits for me to do the same. “So, thanks for being weird for my benefit.”

  “I’m not sure it counts as being weird when you look this fabulous,” I joke, adjust my puffy sleeves, and clink my glass against his, “but you’re more than welcome.”

  “You do look fabulous,” Roman agrees and quickly averts his eyes again. “So, uhh, I just info-dumped everything there is to know about my brother and me, and now I feel quite weird and naked.” He touches his shirt, apparently to check and see that he is, in fact, not naked. “I am a little surprised that he brought you along. He hasn’t brought anyone along since Miranda, so you must be important to him. How about you tell me something weird about yourself to make me feel less weird about myself? Got any weird habits?” He takes a deep breath. “That was a lot of weird.”

  I laugh and try to think of something to tell him while wondering who this Miranda was. His ex, I assume. “Of course, uhh… Oh, I know something. I don’t think it’s weird, but I have been told it may be a little odd. See, I have this thing where I believe in Karma. Not like in a divine intervention sort of way. It’s all about math for me.”

  Roman’s eyes shoot up for a millisecond.

  “I think that every action has a reaction, a consequence. So if you do a lot of good, the mathematical probability of good things happening to you is substantially higher. That is to say, when you do nice things for others, they are more likely to remember and do nice things in return. You know that cheesy line: Happiness is the only thing that multiplies when you share it? It’s kind of like that.”

  Roman nods.

  “The problem is that it barely ever seems to work the other way around. People get away with terrible things all the time. Like…” I try to come up with a good example. “Like someone who throws away their trash in a park did something bad and they know it, but the chance of them receiving appropriate repercussions, so they won’t repeat their behavior in the future, is close to zero. So, once in a while, when I observe something like that, I will intervene and do Karma’s job for her. Because too often she is a fickle, fickle⁠—”

  “If I hadn’t been eavesdropping, I would have assumed you were talking about yourself,” Ryker growls as he sits back down next to me.

  “Watch it, or you’re not invited to Fry-day’s anymore,” Roman mumbles while looking at some phallic sculpture that’s bolted to the wall.

  Ryker chuckles. He clearly isn’t used to his brother pushing back, but he seems to enjoy it nonetheless. “So,” he teases, “other than a brain tumor —I assume— what else is new with you?”

  We chat for a while until our food arrives. My mushroom steak looks and smells delicious. Ryker had pre-ordered a butternut squash and sage ravioli with cashew cream sauce for himself, which looks equally scrumptious, and the last plate to arrive isn’t a plate but a large platter. Ryker’s eyes grow big with anticipation when the server puts it down in front of his brother.

  “No way,” Roman gasps.

  The plate is full of colorful vegetables cut into oversized matchsticks that are neatly stacked in cubes. Apparently, Ryker had arranged that all his food would be cut into batonnets.

  “Touch one.” Ryker laughs. “They’re soggy, just the way you like them and, of course, there are a bunch of dips with too much sugar and salt for you to work on clogging those arteries of yours.”

  Roman touches a stick of fried, soggy carrot, pushes it neatly back into place, and gasps again. “I didn’t know how much I needed this,” he murmurs.

  To my chagrin, this is the best and worst thing I have seen all day. Roman’s eyes are big and innocent, like he is having candy for the first time, except that his candy is soggy vegetables. I love that something this simple makes him that happy. The only thing that I don’t like is that Ryker is responsible for it. He’s not the kind of person to do kind things. He is rude and irritable, and says things like ‘Grrr’ and ‘If I hadn’t been eavesdropping, I would have assumed you were talking about yourself’.

  But here it is, the sweet, attentive, kind side of the devil. And it makes me dislike him even more. Because it means that he chooses to be a disgruntled grouch to everyone all the time when he possesses the ability to… not be that? At some point, he probably just figured out that he can skate through life on his looks and wealth, which is when he stopped worrying about being nice or doing the right thing.

  After dinner, we have a few more beers, and one or two shots of something called the ‘Sourpuss Special’ for good measure, before we eventually decide it’s time to leave. Roman shakes my hand, and stares at me with eyes-wide open and an equally big grin when getting into his limousine. “Alright,” he says as the window slides down, “I obviously don’t have time next Friday to go to Fry-day’s, but I will see you on Saturday for my birthday. I’ll text you the address.” He nods once and closes the window again.

  “Why would you text me the address?” Ryker asks, a little confused as he puts his jacket over my shoulders. “I know where the party is.”

  The window slides down once more. “Not you, you fool. I invited your girlfriend.” The window closes again before the limousine drives off and leaves Ryker and me behind on the side of the road.

  Ryker is smiling, like actually smiling, which I am sure is some supernatural sign, foreboding some kind of disaster. The last time he smiled like that, I dropped my pillow-weapon and almost made out with him.

  I imagine what it would feel like to kiss him right now. I know what it felt like when we were still strangers, and now I wonder if it has changed, whether I would feel different doing it now. His smile turns to me and he tugs his jacket around my shoulders to keep me warm. If he keeps this up, I’m worried that darn smile of his might make me drop my panties instead of my pillow this time.

  Keep it together, dumbass.

  Stay strong.

  Luckily, he quickly stops when he notices me staring. His pearly whites give way for the familiar, drawn together eyebrows and the wrinkles on his forehead. He takes a step back and motions across the street. “That way,” he lets out in a brutish tone.

  I avert my eyes, mentally bitchslap my brain for allowing thoughts about our lips doing wonderfully terrible things to each other, and begin walking.

  Mere moments later, my brain retaliates by hiding the curb right in front of me. I trip and, in what feels like slow-motion, fall straight towards the unforgiving pavement.

  Unfortunately, I never hit it. Instead, I dangle in Ryker’s right arm. He’s down on one knee, his arm spun around my chest, holding me inches from the ground. I exhale. A tiny, thoroughly strained grunt escapes my saviors throat in response. His arm is shaking under the tension.

  “Are you calling me fat?” I ask, still hanging mid-air, glancing over at him.

  Ryker tries to hold it together but breaks out in laughter right away, then drops me to the ground and lands half on top, half next to me. For a moment, it must look like he and I are spooning in the middle of the walkway.

  17

  RYKER

  There are many things one could say about Sienna de la Vega. Her wrinkle of friends would probably call her a firecracker. And they would be correct… if they were referring to the illegal kind you buy from the shady guy selling them out of the trunk of his car in an abandoned parking lot behind a junkyard. There’s definitely a constant risk of getting burned when being in her proximity. Maybe that’s what makes it so thrilling. That, and the fact that any fireworks pale in comparison to her.

  I look over at Sienna sitting in the seat next to mine. Her head is bouncing around, her eyes are closed, and there’s a little drool running down the side of her mouth. The view makes me smile.

  Must be the alcohol.

  Carefully, I maneuver her body onto the empty seat between us. Once she’s down, she adjusts herself in her sleep and places her head on my lap.

  A second later, I am rock hard, and consequently somewhat filled with guilt. It’s not really my fault. There’s nothing I can do about it, it’s involuntary, unavoidable. My right arm is hovering in the air above hers, and I’m not sure what to do with it. Placing it on her side seems wrong for some reason, and I don’t want to wake her up. So I just let it float there.

  After what feels like a small eternity (and a very thorough workout), the car finally comes to a stop and the partition slides down a little. Miles peeks through the gap. When he sees the two of us, his eyes grin. “We’re here,” he whispers.

  I nod.

  “You been sitting like this the entire time, boss?” his tiny eyes ask quietly. “Didn’t know you were this adorable.”

  I try to wiggle my arm a little and am happy when my hand manages to flip my driver off.

  He laughs quietly and closes the partition again.

  Carefully, I slide out from underneath the drooling princess on top of me. I open the door, take her into my arms, and carry her inside. At the reception, I find the same guy I met earlier, Paul. Except now he is hunched over his desk and for a moment, I’m worried he might be dead. His steady snore lets me know that isn’t the case. I consider kicking him a little to wake him up when I see a list of names taped to the desk. Sienna’s name is written next to the number 113. That must be her apartment number. I do a little crab-walk to enter the elevator, then take us to the first floor. When we get there, I crab-walk us out of the elevator, take a left turn and, in doing so, inadvertently smash her head against the wall.

  Shit.

  She wails a little, balls up like a hurt little kitten in my arms, and rubs her head. Then she opens her eyes and looks up at me with a questioning expression on her face.

  “What the fuck?” she mouths.

  “Sorry about that.” I carefully let her to her feet. “I guess we’re lucky there’s not much in there that could break.”

  Sienna looks around, obviously wondering how she got here.

  “You fell asleep because you can’t hold your liquor, so I was carrying you home.”

  She hiccups and yawns at the same time, then straightens her dress. “Thanks for that… and for not taking advantage of, or killing me, I guess.”

  “Oh, I took advantage,” I say and follow her to her door. “I took advantage of you not talking to me the entire ride here. It was great, all that peace and quiet.”

  She grins a little and lets her forehead smack against the front door. “Bumping my head over there was the murder attempt then?”

  I observe as she pulls her dress up and rummages through her nether regions. She almost looks like a drunk guy trying to take a leak in an alley. A second later, she pulls a jingling set of keys from the kangaroo pocket of her hoodie, but instead of opening the door, she drops them to the ground and groans.

  I think I like drunk Sienna. She hasn’t hurled an insult at me once in the last hour. Unless her last comment was supposed to be an insult. I can’t even tell anymore. Then again, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find her actual insults riveting as well.

  I bend down, put her arm over my shoulder, unlock the door, and help her inside. Sienna plunges down on her bed and I get a chance to take in our surroundings. The apartment is small and full of crap. The first thing I notice is the abundance of useless decoration: pillows, plants, more pillows, blankets, and trinkets all around. It looks like a unicorn threw up in here.

  “Alright,” I say, unsure of what to do next. “Do you need anything before I go?”

  “Well,” Sienna sighs and spins around on the bed, “I guess not.” The dress is now covering her head. An arm and a leg are hanging off the mattress. “Wait, yes. Maybe you can help me take this off?”

  “Right.” I walk the two steps back to the bed, grab the extended leg and arm, and, without hesitation, flip her back over onto her belly.

  She makes a wheeee-sound like a kid on a roller coaster, followed by a little retching.

  “See, told you that you’d make me puke,” she says. “It just took a while.”

  I stifle a laugh and stare down at her ass. It’s being hugged tightly by her yoga pants and I don’t think I have ever seen anything more slappable. It’s round, and plump, and annoyingly perfect.

  It takes all my willpower and then some for me to ignore it. But I have to. I really, really have to. Quickly, I bend down to unzip her dress, then reach my arms around her, and, careful not to actually make her puke, lift her to her feet. Sienna steps out of the dress and walks into her bathroom.

  Before she closes the door, she turns around. “He—” another hiccup cuts the y off. “Hey, would it be weird if I asked you to stay and read a bedtime story to me?”

  I stare back at her. By now, the beer is getting to my head too, and it takes me a moment to process her question. I nod decidedly. “Definitely. That would be very weird.”

  “Right,” she says curtly and closes the door.

  I remain standing among the cacophony of colors in her room and listen to her brush her teeth. It’s like I’m glued to the ground. She’s humming along to some imaginary tune that sounds a lot like a song by Rick Astley. Then the door opens back up, and she lets out a scream when she sees me standing in the middle of her room still.

  “You didn’t leave.”

  “I said it would be weird, not that I wouldn’t do it. Plus, I didn’t think you could hear the bedtime story through the door.”

  Sienna smiles and lets out an undecipherable sound before taking off her hoodie and jumping into bed. Her sports bra is tight, but there’s still some significant bouncing that makes it hard to have a clear thought. From across the room, Gordon Ramsey is giving me the side-eye.

  I turn towards the door and consider my actions for a moment. Gordon is probably right. I should probably go. Today was one big bust. I didn’t take care of my obligations. I didn’t use the opportunity to exact revenge on the person who almost made me miss my best friend’s wedding, and got me locked up. And I still didn’t really do anything about the ‘Commando Catastrophe’ as one newspaper started calling it if I can believe Bruce’s texts. On the contrary, I spent half the day having fun like some useless moron. And maybe that’s the worst part.

  I did have fun. More fun than I’ve had in a while.

  I close the door, take off my shoes, and walk over to Sienna’s bed. She’s tucked under her blanket. Her fingers are holding onto it, framing her little button nose and smiling eyes. Above, with slight delay, her curls follow every movement her head makes.

  “Which book do you want me to read?” I ask as I sit down on the edge of the bed, looking over at the stack of books next to me.

  Sienna shrugs, making her hair bop a little. “Reader’s choice.”

  So I just grab the book on top of the stack, open the first page, clear my throat and begin to read: “Once upon a time —to be more precise twenty-one and two years ago— there was a… well, princess would be kind of a stretch to be honest.” I move the book into the light of the little lamp on the nightstand. The text is handwritten. Sienna’s peeking eyes have grown to twice their normal size.

  “Yeah, maybe not that one.” She pulls the blanket over her head.

  “Wait, did you write this?”

  “Maybe,” her muffled voice replies, followed by a long yawn. “Olivia told me to do it as some sort of mental exercise. Something about working through the past and what not. I’m not a writer like her, I don’t intend to publish it. It’s just some thoughts and such. They don’t even make sense half the time, so feel free to pick another book.”

  “Reader’s choice,” I grunt and continue reading. “…princess would be kind of a stretch to be honest. She didn’t have a castle, or a crown, not even a horse. And from this day on, she wouldn’t even have her parents anymore.

  This fateful day started like any other day. Our little (barely a) princess got up, ate breakfast, kissed her mom goodbye, and headed out to school where she would train in the ancient arts of computer games, candy eating and trampoline jumping all day long.” I look over to Sienna and nod approvingly, which she acknowledges with another head bop.

  Then I continue, “Watching over the school grounds from up high (or at least as high as a little kid could jump on a trampoline), she couldn’t see what the future was holding for her that day, and she didn’t know yet that this story would not be another fairytale about a princess. It was the beginning of a much different story. Some might argue it was the beginning of a villain origin story, some might say it was the start of a pretty cool vigilante story, but all could agree that it was a hella depressing tale. I mean a kids’ parents are about to die. That’s not the kind of story where they play the ‘Ceeee-le-brate good times’ song in the background.” I swallow and flip to the next page. Sienna has turned her back towards me by now, one arm is pulling the blanket up to her chin, the other keeps the pillow underneath her in place. I wonder if I should stop reading. I don’t know if I am crossing boundaries here that shouldn’t be crossed. Then again, it’s not like we didn’t already barrel through all imaginable boundaries the moment we met. Plus, she didn’t really try to stop me, so I guess it’s fine? “The little (not a) princess had always been a fairly good little girl. In fact, she wasn’t even that interested in being a princess. Would she have wanted to own a crown? Absolutely, but she would have sold it to give the money to her parents (after wearing it and bossing them around for a day, of course) so that they could have bought themselves a castle, or at least a little palace (assuming those are cheaper to come by). A haunted one would have sufficed, she thought. It would have been more fun anyway, she secretly added. And a horse? They seemed like a lot of work, and the little girl wouldn’t want anyone to sit on her back all the time either, so she didn’t even want to own a horse. She did think it would be nice for someone to offer her a horse at least, but only so she could explain that horses are not meant to be fenced in all their lives. Because that’s who the little girl was: a little insufferable, but kind at heart.” I look up from the book once more and over to Sienna, who is now giving off the same noises Paul down in the lobby did earlier. It would appear her own story bored her so much she fell asleep within minutes. Or maybe she was just that tired. It is fairly late by now and she had been yawning for quite a while. I close the book, consider taking it home, and then put it back on the pile. Reading it felt a little shady; stealing it would definitely be wrong.